Isaac Law – 2023 Graduate in Private Business and Family Advisory (PBFA)

Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting and Finance), University of Melbourne

I joined Pitcher Partners as a Graduate in March 2023 and am spending my first Experience in Private Business and Family Advisory (PBFA). The PBFA team is the second largest team at Pitcher Partners and our clients include family businesses, entrepreneurs, and high net worth individuals. Come with me and see what a day in the life of a Graduate in our PBFA team looks like!

7:00 am

My first alarm goes off… I hit snooze.

7:30 am

I wake myself up with a cold shower, make myself a hot cup of coffee and make sure my hair is looking nice and neat. Today, I'll be heading into the office, so I'll make sure that I have my shirt ironed and everything packed so I have time to quickly grab some breakfast so that I feel energised and ready for the day. I then say good morning to my neighbours Frenchie while making my way to the bus stop.

8:30 am

I arrive in the office, fill up my water bottle, organise my desk, and check my emails. We have flexible seating arrangements in my team, so each Friday I jump onto our desk booking system to book my desk for next week. I’ve got a window seat next week – score!

While checking my workflow, I receive an email from my manager Chris querying if I have capacity to assist with a Tax Planning job for a family group. Tax Planning usually occurs before the end of the financial year as we prepare the distribution/dividend minutes for our client's companies and trusts. I look at my workflow and I have capacity, so I accept the job and schedule a meeting the following day to receive a brief about the job.

9:30 am

The caffeine from my morning coffee is wearing off so it's time for a coffee run. I gather the troops to the Hub (Pitcher's internal café) and order my FREE oat latte (coffees are subsidised by the amazing partners, lucky us). We have time for some quick banter for a couple of minutes before we head back to work.

10:00 am

At this point of the day, I start working through my jobs. My responsibilities as a Graduate usually involve setting up the client files, preparing tax reconciliations workpapers and drafting tax returns. I find the work really engaging and I am exposed to a variety of different business structures, which is one of the benefits of PBFA.

While working through my jobs, I will list all my queries and raise it with my senior or manager of the job. I always find it's best to communicate with my team whenever I encounter a problem because they are able to explain it much quicker than spending too much time trying to solve it yourself.

12:00 pm

By noon I'm starving (especially if you have had a busy morning with meetings and client work). Every Thursday the Pitcher café prepares some cheap lunch specials, today it’s lasagne. We find ourselves a booth, enjoy our lunch and the couple of bags of Shapes that we picked up at morning tea.

2:00 pm

After lunch, I call the ATO to request for a few interest remissions. This involves calling the ATO and requesting a reduction of interest charged on overdue client debt amounts. It usually takes forever to get in contact with the ATO especially when it's approaching the End of Financial Year, but at least they put on some good tunes while joining the queue!

3:00 pm

I start working through a few client business activity statements (BAS). Since the bookkeeping of this job is prepared on Xero, I request for user access and download some reports before starting the BAS. Once the BAS has been drafted, I notify my senior that it is ready for review. Since there were no review points (happy

days) I draft an email to the client for my manager, who passes on the good news that they will be receiving a refund.

5:15 pm

It's the end of the day, I begin to finalise my timesheets and update my job list. Our team has organised a bowling night to celebrate all our efforts throughout the year. We make our way to the Strike, have a couple of drinks, and have an amazing Friday night!

Tatiana Vanden Houte – 2023 Graduate in Tax Advisory

Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting and Economics), University of Melbourne

This is going to look a lot like a food blog but there is a lot of interesting work in the details, I promise!

I have been a Tax Analyst for almost four months now and I love it, everyday is different which makes this hard to capture but I think today gives you a good idea of what it is like. The variety of work we do is huge and there are so many opportunities to get involved with different work and to work with different people across the team, I can’t recommend it enough.

6:30 am

I don’t usually wake up this early but today is morning Pilates at the office! I usually leave all my things for the day ready for me to grab and go in the morning because any extra minute of sleep is a win.

All that is left for me to do once I get up is get ready and go! Big headphones on Taylor Swift the whole way to work to get psyched up for the day.

Pitcher Partners

7:30 am

Being so close to public transport (both train and tram) makes coming into the office so easy (and it’s gorgeous which helps).

7:45 am

Once a week there is a $5 Pilates class that runs before work and I am a regular attendee! It is such a great way to start the day the instructor, Tracie, has such positive energy. Given I sit at a desk for a lot of the day, this is a great way for me to get in as much movement as I can.

8:45 am

After Pilates I duck down to the end-of-trip facilities to have a quick shower and change into my work clothes for the day. We have lockers assigned to us so my Pilates bag goes in there before I head to my desk to start my workday!

Once I get to my desk, I set myself up for the day by checking my emails and calendar to see what I need to get done for the day. I still use a paper notebook because I love the feeling of pen to paper so I use it to write down my tasks for the day.

8:50 am

I am not at my desk long before the Tax Grads MS Teams chat goes off with coffee emojis! I love coming into the office because there is always someone here to catch up with, so at 8:50 we head up to the Hub (our internal café) together and get some FREE coffee (pink cup a daily staple). We usually take this time to catch up on our weekend plans but also discuss what kind of work everyone is getting and what they are enjoying. Tax as a group does such interesting work and there is such a huge variety that it is good to check in with each other to see what is out there at our level that we could get involved with.

I am not at my desk long before the Tax Grads MS Teams chat goes off with coffee emojis! I love coming into the office because there is always someone here to catch up with, so at 8:50 we head up to the Hub (our internal café) together and get some FREE coffee (pink cup a daily staple). We usually take this time to catch up on our weekend plans but also discuss what kind of work everyone is getting and what they are enjoying. Tax as a group does such interesting work and there is such a huge variety that it is good to check in with each other to see what is out there at our level that we could get involved with.

Once I am back at my desk, I start making my way through my task list. First up on the agenda is saving and reviewing correspondence. I am working on a company tax return and we had sent out a questionnaire to assist us in preparing their international dealings schedule. Overnight the client responded so I first save the correspondence to the file and then I jump into Tax Manager and update the return with the information they sent through. Once that is done it gets sent off the Senior Analyst I am working with to review.

9:30 am

Every morning around 9:30 the snacks come out in the kitchen on each level, so I take a quick break to walk (run) to the kitchen. Today there are chips, fruit and cookies on offer. After my Pilates session today, I decided I’ll keep the healthy streak going and opt for an apple.

Back at my desk, my next task of the day is updating some company tax returns for a group I am working on. The manager has reviewed the returns and prepared some queries for me to go through, which is a great way to learn and to fix mistakes you might have made. In tax there is a big focus on continued technical development, so when we do get feedback, it is not just an instruction to fix something, but an explanation of why it needs changing along with any relevant legislation that can help us further develop our understanding.

10:30 am

The tax returns were priority, so they get done first. Once they are all updated and sent off to the manager for a final review, I turn my attention to my next task: a tax residency analysis piece. This is one I am very excited about getting the opportunity to draft, as International Tax is an area I am very interested in. The client is asking for advice on their tax residency status as someone who has moved from one place to another to another to another. The first thing I start with is reviewing the questionnaire we send out; this will give me all the context I need to start the analysis. Once I have read through everything and prepared the background info, I start going through the residency tests and applying them to the case and typing it all up in a brief for the manager on the job. The training we get in tax gives us a really good understanding of how to access resources and use them for something like this, so I am looking at what the legislation says and prior pieces of analysis we have done in a similar area and using those to support developing a response.

11:30 am

Before I know it it’s time for coffee number two. This time, an iced latte which I drink at my desk with a little chocolate (I always keep some in my desk drawer). This powers me on for the rest of the morning while I continue drafting the residency piece.

12:30 pm

I usually pack my own lunch from home, but when the Hub has a lasagna special on, I can’t resist! The other Tax Grads have sub-group meetings today, so I head up to level 12 and find some friends to sit with. I love coming to have lunch at the Hub because there are always people there up for a chat. One of my favourite things about the graduate program is how many people you meet and connect with across the experience. I sit with a group of people who work across the firm in different practice areas, we joke around a little and I get to hear about how their rotations are going which is a really great insight to refer back to when thinking about what areas of the firm I want to try in my next rotations.

1:30 pm

After lunch I check in with a Client Director who had reached out to me to assist with a very important payroll tax job. I have found in tax the context and background you receive in the initial meeting is fundamental to understanding the client and the work you are doing for them. This client has a potential exposure to some payroll tax liability so after the meeting I set up a file and save all the documents we are going to need. I get sent the payroll tax annual reconciliations (save those to the file) and I do some preliminary calculations to check the liability the client might be facing. Once that is done, I summarise the position and email the director to review and discuss the next steps.

2:30

The Hub’s variety is truly unmatched so at 2:30 I take a quick break and grab an iced matcha. The subgroup meetings had food leftover (they usually do) and so I grab some fruit they put in the kitchen for people to enjoy on my way back to my desk and settle in for the afternoon. I have a meeting with a manager at 3 so I prepare the documents and the questions I have for them on the job we are doing together.

3:00 pm

I have a meeting with a manager I am working with, so we jump into one of the focus rooms and I plug my laptop into the screen to walk him through the CGT calculations I prepared. We talk about what changes need to be made, go through the legislation to clarify any areas I misunderstood, and finally end on a figure everyone is confident with. After the meeting I head back to my desk and finalise the calculation, put it into the tax return and then send the whole thing off to be reviewed.

5:15 pm

To finish off my day I check my emails to see what is on the agenda tomorrow and look over the checklist I prepared at the beginning of the day. I compare my checklist to my timesheet and double check I have recorded all my time for the day before I post it. Then I am on my way to the station to catch the train.

6:30 pm

Last weekend was my mom’s birthday so today I head to my grandmother’s house for dinner where we have cake to celebrate!

9:30 pm

I travel back home and get myself set up for the next day, which includes making breakfast and lunch to take with me and checking I have everything I need in my bag for another day of work. I leave my bag packed and everything I need by the front door and then I jump on the couch with my partner to watch the next episode of Succession (yes, we are late to the party).

11:00 pm

Tucked into bed - I need those 8 hours!

Thanks for coming along with me for my day in the life!

Lachlan Hines – 2023 Graduate in Digital and Data Solutions

Bachelor of Computer Science, Swinburne University

Hi, I’m Lachie and I have recently started at Pitcher Partners in the Technology Stream of the Graduate Experience Program. I am currently working in the Digital and Data Solutions team where we help our clients get the most out of their technology and systems.

Join me for an outline of what a day in life of a Technology Graduate looks like!

6:40 am

My day always starts with a couple hits of the snooze button on my alarm. After some failed attempts at trying to get back to sleep my secondary alarm clock (my dog, Ellie) will then get sick of me trying to sleep and I'll be forced up to entertain her. A quick shower and coffee gets me ready for the day, I’ll then feed Ellie, say goodbye and start heading into the office.

8:30 am

I enjoy getting into the office a little early as it allows me to take 10 minutes to plan my daily tasks, check my emails and MS Teams notifications. Also being a creature of habit, I can sit at the same desk each morning.

I'll also start prioritising tasks, starting with any that I didn't get to from the day before or any urgent tasks that come through.

8:40 am

It's now time for my Projects daily stand-up meeting, on this project we spend 5-10 minutes each morning

Going over the previous days tasks and laying out what we are all planning on achieving for the day.

Over the last two weeks I've been asked to create a PowerBI report detailing some payroll data for the last five years, so during the meeting I update everyone on my progress and add new items to my to-dos for the day.

9:00 am

Around this time the DDS team will go up for a morning coffee, this a good chance to chat with everyone and get the rundown of everyone's weekend adventures.

9:10 am

After a morning chat and coffee with the team I'll start getting stuck into the tasks that I set out and need to get done for the day.

My main work focus for today is finishing off this financial report in PowerBI. The project I'm on is a good chance to improve on my skills in PowerBI. The DDS team has a wide range of projects they work on and a wide array of skills and as a Grad I'm keen to work in as many areas as I can.

11:30 am

Every Monday the DDS team has a meeting where we go through our weekly workload and try to ensure everyone has a manageable capacity, if someone's got too much on their plate, we could find them help or if someone's looking for work this is a good opportunity to stick their hand up and offer assistance.

12:00 pm

I end up chatting to another member of the team about the work we have been doing, this is often helpful because as I'm detailing the work I'm doing they can offer advice or ways they would approach the work.

In this case we get distracted and end up talking about the NBA.

12:30 pm

It's now time for lunch!

Being someone that never brings their own lunch in (an expensive habit) I'll go buy lunch with the other members of the team. This is also a nice excuse to go for a walk and get out of the office for a bit. The choice often comes down to GYG, Sergey Boy or Rumbas. On this occasion GYG is the winner!

Lunch with the DDS always leads to some very interesting topics of conversations, from how playing 5D chess would work to a discussion on if carpets are conscious.

1:30 pm

After failing to wrap my head around 5D chess and fighting off the urge for a post lunch nap and wanting to finish off this report today, I put my headphones in and power through what is my main task for today.

I'm adding in the final page of the report to display the clients average change in salary of the last five years and deciding on the best way to display this information.

2:30 pm

Around this time a couple of members of the team will start gauging interest in an afternoon visit to the Hub. After our afternoon caffeine recharge, it’s back to work to try a smash through my remaining tasks.

2:45 pm

I double check my work from this morning and make sure it's ready for review. I let my manager know of my progress and we set up a time for me to demo my work and to get feedback.

I've also been asked to look over the data we have stored for this project and identify if we are keeping any personal information and flag this for the next stage of the project. As my other tasks are lower priority I start on this right away.

5:00 pm

Around 5:00 I'll start wrapping up my day, fill in any missed timecard entries, do a final check of my emails and tick off my to-dos and tasks. Any tasks that I didn't manage to get to today or any late tasks that came in I'll add to the top of my list and aim to get done first thing tomorrow. Today I managed to complete everything I set out to do and get to start fresh tomorrow!

5:15 pm

Home Time! Say goodbye to the team members who are in the office today and start heading home.

6:00 pm

Trying to get back into a good exercise routine, after work I'll head to my climbing gym and even if not a lot of productive exercise is done it's always nice to socialise.

8:00 pm

On days like today where I managed to convince myself to go climbing, I'll get home around 8:00 - 8:30, I'll have some dinner, say hello to Ellie and take her for a quick walk to our local park.

After dinner and the walk, I'll hop into bed for either an episode of Succession (my latest bingeing show) or a couple of chapters of my current book, ‘The Magician’ by Raymond E Fiest.

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